ATLANTA — Students at Frederick Douglass High School in Atlanta have a new opportunity to prepare for life after graduation, thanks to some help from two giants of the entertainment industry.
The Iovine and Young Education Group, whose co-founders are record executive Jimmy lovine and rapper-producer Dr. Dre, is partnering with Atlanta Public Schools to launch a new learning pathway beginning in August of 2024.
The pathway will initially be offered to students in the school’s 9th Grade STEAM Academy. According to a release, "each year the cohort of freshman class will be expanded and given the opportunity to enroll in the Iovine and Young Center." The program will be fully implemented in all grade levels 9th -12th grade by the 2027-2028 school year.
“Future engineers, designers, entrepreneurs and innovators walk these halls daily. In order to foster their creative energy, we must change our approaches to learning to ensure we are meeting the diverse needs of our students. Integrating the Iovine and Young Center at Frederick Douglass High School supports our ability to teach students how to design their thinking, brings student ideas to life, and further prepares our students for competitive careers that may not even exist yet”, said Douglass Principal Forrestella Taylor.
Students enrolled in the program will get the opportunity to "explore diverse disciplines, businesses, and industries to bring solutions to the problems surrounding these areas."
At the end, students will be able to collaborate and create pitches for their innovations that challenge real-world problems. All of this is to help them be more competitive when applying to universities and better prepared for a career going forward.
A statement released ahead of the announcement, noted Iovine and Dre's interest in starting the program:
The partnership between APS and IYEG stems from Jimmy Iovine and Andre “Dr. Dre” Young's pursuit of fostering interdisciplinary skills such as technology, business and design in future generations. As the visionaries developed BEATs technology both Iovine and Young noticed that each professional sector demonstrated expertise in their unique area but none possessed a combined knowledge. In 2013, Iovine and Young partnered with the University of Southern California to create the Iovine and Young Academy (IYA), a school offering USC college students an opportunity to develop interdisciplinary skills.
After many successful years, the pioneers noticed a lack of ethnic diversity in their IYA graduating classes and thus began the pursuit of expanding their innovative learning framework to high school students, targeting black and brown students in public education.
“We want to give the next generation of students access to a proven, revolutionary learning experience where technology meets design and entrepreneurship,” Iovine said. “This will not only prepare them for the jobs of today but equip them to reimagine and shape the jobs, technologies, and creative enterprises of the future,” Iovine said. We are thrilled with our results in higher ed and the Los Angeles high school, and hope for similar success with Atlanta Public Schools.”